Mary Ellen Ternes

Mary Ellen Ternes, Partner, Earth & Water Law, LLC, and an AIChE Fellow, has served as a leader in ChE and environmental law with EPA, industry, and as a senior partner and environmental-practice group chair at private law firms providing outside counsel for business, municipalities, and science-focused environmental nonprofits. She earned her BEChE at Vanderbilt Univ. and her JD with high honors at the Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law. Her AIChE activities include Co-Chair, 2010 Spring Meeting; Vice Chair, Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum; Founding Chair, Chemical Engineering and the Law Forum; Chair, Climate Change and Regulatory and Legislation sections, Environmental Div.; Founding Chair, Public Affairs and Information Committee (PAIC); co-author, AIChE 2014 and 2019 Climate Change Policy; Editorial Board, Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy; Climate Solutions Policy Initiative; and recipient of the Environmental Div.’s Service Award. Outside AIChE, she served/serves as President, American College of Environmental Lawyers (Fellow); Chair, 2008 Annual Conference on Environmental Law, American Bar Association; External Advisory Committee, Vanderbilt Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Dept.; Senior Fellow, Global Council of Science and the Environment; and United Nations Delegate for treaty negotiations to end plastic pollution.